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LIFE in the EAST FALL 2018

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INSIDE: The Hammock Source • Smashed Waffles • Duplin Winery • Clary Sage • First Flight Vodka
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Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East 5

 20 On the
cover
46 years.
3 generations.
450,000 cases of wine.
A sweet taste of eastern
North Carolina

Read more on page 20

contents
08 business
Laidback

15 A smash
hit

20 Sweet
success

30 Smells like
money

40 takeoff
Ready for

6 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018


Publisher
John Cooke
Editor
Mackenzie Tewksbury
Contributing writers
Michael Abramowitz, Kim Grizzard,
Ginger Livingston, Maya Jarrell
Photographers
Juliette Cooke and Molly Mathis
Advertising managers
Elizabeth Semple and John Powell
Advertising representatives
Katie Forlines, Kevin Gallagher,
Christina Ruotolo, Alan Skirnick and
Rubie Smith
Creative Services
Jasmine Blount, Brandi Callahan,
Alex Ezzell, Jessica Harris, Tim Mayberry,
Dawn Newton, Victoria Privette
Layout
Lora Jernigan and Samuel Alvarado
Greenville: Life in the East is a
publication of The Daily Reflector and
Cooke Communications North Carolina.
Contents may not be reproduced without
the consent of the publisher.
Note
from the
Editor
There’s a certain sense of
pride I think that comes
with where an individual is
from. It becomes a part of who you are, understandably.
The people, places, and culture never really leave you, even
if you leave them.
For example, I’m from Baltimore, Maryland. Well, right
outside of Baltimore to be exact.
Or in other words, home of the self-proclaimed best Ches-
apeake Bay blue crabs, lacrosse and Michael Phelps. And
berger cookies. And the Ravens, the Orioles — the list goes on.
But if you dove deeper, you’d find there are little pockets of
hard working people who have created things they’re proud of.
In high school, I spent most of my summers working at
a family-run snowball stand, which is a Baltimore summer
staple. That family — who have owned the stand for nearly
four decades — are some of the most humble, hard working
people I know. They’ve built the stand from the ground up.
Also, if you open up your spice cabinet after reading this,
I’d be willing to bet a lot of you have at least one product
from McCormick Spices.
And if you do, do something for me: turn it around and
look at the back of the label. What you’ll find is that it’s all
made in Hunt Valley, Maryland.
Boom! That’s where I’m from.
And just like most things, we’re proud of it.
The same can be said about North Carolina. From the
outside looking in, it could be known as the state that pro-
duces delicious barbecue or where the Wright Brothers are
from. But those on the inside know it’s really home to some
truly impressive, creative and original products produced

IN THE
by loyal, hard working folks.

E
That’s why I’ve chosen to spotlight some of the things you

AD E
can only find right here in our backyard in this magazine.
This is: Made In The East.
M

Enjoy,
AS
T

Mackenzie

Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East 7

ST
A

A
 Laidback
BUSINESS
Family provides hammock
hub for the east

L
ife’s a beach for the Perkins
family of Greenville, even this
far inland. You could say Walter
Perkins III learned how to swing
through life from his father, Walter Per-
kins Jr., founder of The Hammock Source,
the world’s largest hammock manufactur-
er.
Perkins, CEO of The Hammock Source,
describes his father as “an entrepreneur
on steroids.” Take his penchant to take
things apart and rebuild them better for
example. That’s what the Greenville na-
tive did more than 47 years ago when he
was a tobacco buyer and his mother asked
him to buy her a hammock for the family
beach cottage while on a business trip to
South Carolina.
“Dad thought, ‘Why should I have to
travel all the way to South Carolina to
get a hammock?’ So while there he bought
two, one for the beach house and one to
take apart so he could learn to make one
himself,” Perkins said.

8 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018

By Michael Abramowitz
Greenville: Life in the East

Photos by Juliette Cooke

The Hammock Source legend has

grown since 1971 and the business has
continued to expand in Greenville,
based on the Perkins family reputation
for quality craftsmanship and style. At
its 280,000-square-foot plant, the com-
pany now manufactures five hammock
brands, outdoor relaxation products,
sturdy beach-style seating, tables and
chairs and the founder’s prize discovery,
the Real Deal Brazil Hat, a line of hats
and bags handcrafted in a remote small
town in equatorial Brazil from recycled
canvas tarps that once stretched across
the beds of cross-country cargo trucks.
The hat was immortalized by actor Woody
Harrelson, who gave cool a new meaning
when he wore one in the 2009 blockbuster
movie Zombieland.
“My father always had new entrepre-
neurial ideas, finding ways to use our
scrap lumber and other materials to make
things like planters, dollies and other little
products,” Perkins said.

Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East 9

 The company’s hammock collection
includes Pawleys Island (the inspiration
for the company’s first hammocks — Per-
kins bought the company and its brand in
1997), Hatteras Hammocks, Nags Head,
Key West and Castaway hammocks, each
with its own distinct style and appeal. The
Nags Head line is sold from three retail
locations along the Outer Banks.
The feel and allure of coastal life is
woven and hand-crafted into their ham-
mocks, adding a certain “panache,” as
Walter Perkins Perkins says, but they all originate in
Greenville.

We’ve had good

local employees
and have been
able to fly
with them, so
we’ve stayed
right here in
Greenville and
the company
grew up here.

“Greenville’s been good to us,” Walter

Perkins III said. “We’ve had good local
employees and have been able to fly with
them, so we’ve stayed right here in Green-
ville and the company grew up here.”
Company president Jay Branch was a
direct beneficiary of Walter Perkins Jr.’s
entrepreneurial fervor.
“He once put an ad in the paper look-
ing for cypress knees (the cone-shaped
protrusions that form from the roots of
the trees) to make lamps, and I had lots
of them on our farm when I was a kid, so
I contacted him. That’s how we first met,”
Branch said.

10 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018

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Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East 11

 He has been with the Perkins family
business 41 years and saw how the elder
Perkins used the city’s employment re-
sources to make his business thrive.
“In the very early years, Mr. Perkins
hired students to work part time, when
the factory was located on Clark street in
the tobacco district,” Branch said. “That
was our whole labor force at the time. We
were afraid to move from that location at
first because most of the students walked
to work.
While a few ECU students still do sea-
sonal work at the “new” plant, located on
Industrial Drive north of the Tar River,
most of the approximately 150 employ-
ees are a diverse array full-time crafts-
people, women and men who spin, weave
and texturize the durable synthetic rope
(cotton is not the best material for rope
used for outdoor furniture products) on
which the hammocks and swings hang,
manufacture stuffing for the mattresses
and pillows they make from recycled soda
bottles, fabricate wooden and steel ham-
mock frames and custom-finish furniture
pieces from “lumber” made from recycled
milk cartons.
It’s a different kind of work than the
scientific industries being touted for Pitt
County, but just the same, capable work-
ers are prized for growth in this kind of
manufacturing, too, Perkins said.
“We’re a low-tech manufacturer,” Per-
kins said. “You don’t find many people
who can weave and sew anymore, so we
train them. I think we get forgotten in this

12 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018

push for high-tech economic development
growth. It’s great that so much is being
done to attract all these high-tech busi-
nesses, but at the same time, more can
be done to help manufacturers like us
and marine manufacturers to get trained
people.”
Jean Strickland, one of The Hammock
Source’s veteran craftspeople, has been
weaving hammocks and chairs for about
30 years and still loves her work.
“I’ll be here forever; I love it,” Strick-
land said. “I like to see people do things
naturally with their hands rather than by
machine, and I like training new people
how to do this. It’s complicated to learn,
but once you do, you love it. And it makes
me feel good to know that people use
these products to relax in.”
Perkins sells his hammocks on the
global market and knows that shipping
some of his manufacturing needs over-
sees could save the company expense,
Fall 2018
but won’t compromise the integrity of his
products for profit.
“Our customers want American-made
products with extremely high quality, and
that’s what we produce here in Greenville,
and we’ll continue to do that,” he said.
[Fun fact: At one time Hammock
Source made a big killing in the pizza de-
livery bag business for the Domino’s Pizza
company, when pizza delivery was still in
its infancy, Perkins said. They dropped the
line when the technology became easily
reproduced.]
The company founder still comes to
work filled with ideas and energy, but
now leaves most of the leadership and
operational responsibilities to his son
and Branch.
“When he walks in for a brainstorming
session, there’s no telling what direction
it will take,” Branch said. “We have to stay
focused and pick out the best ideas from
among the hundreds he has.”
Greenville: Life In The East
“But they’re better equipped to un-
derstand today’s technology than I am,”
Walter Perkins Jr. said. “They’ve grown
up with it.”
Despite all the talk about rising sea lev-
els and the possible loss of coastal land,
Perkins and Branch don’t worry too much
about the possible impact that might have
on their business.
“There’s still going to be a coastline,
no matter where it’s at or how it chang-
es,” Perkins said. “I don’t think people will
ever run from the coast. They might build
in a new way, and we’ll be here to make
something new for them.”
The company’s fascinating story and
the full line of products available at The
Hammock Source can be viewed at the
website www.the hammocksource.com or
call 252-758-0641 to speak with a company
representative.
13
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A
smash
HIT
Two eastern NC
men find success
in untapped
market
By Maya Jarrell
Greenville: Life in the East

Photos by Juliette Cooke

W
hen Hunter Harrison and
Justin Cox met over cof-
fee one night a few years
ago, they intended to
discuss app ideas, not come up with
a new and innovative business model.
However, upon parting that night, the
friends and colleagues had a plan to
take the dessert market by storm with
Smashed Waffles.
Hunter Harrison holds half a
dozen Smash Waffles creations
“The conversation, in its origin, was
about how we could take a restaurant or
food concept, and bootstrap it, and start
it with minimal money and just see what
happens,” Harrison said. “We left that
conversation that night and I said ‘I will
go and try to create the branding and the
online presence,’ because that’s what I
had a little bit of background in. Justin
left the conversation and went to create
some recipes.”
After mulling over their respective
tasks for about a week and a half, Harri-
son and Cox reconvened with five waffle
recipes and a fully developed website.
“From there we had a fully functional
website, we had a recipe, we had a brand,
so the next step for us was to market test,”
Harrison said. “We made up some waffles
and went and delivered them to some lo-
cal businesses. As soon as we dropped off
the waffles at businesses people started
16
ordering them and we really had no means
to fulfill orders. We were just trying to
gauge the market and see what happens.”
From there the duo transitioned to de-
livering waffles out of a commissary kitch-
en. This turned into opening a food truck,
which lead to opening their first cafe on
Dickinson Avenue and then just recently
opening their second cafe in Raleigh.
“I think ever ything about it has
changed to a certain degree, and that’s
really the case with most startups,” Har-
Greenville: Life In The East
rison said. “You’ve just got to start it and
see what it evolves into. At the very begin-
ning, at the inception of the concept, we
were almost anti-cafe. We were like ‘well
let’s not do it with a restaurant, let’s just
do delivery. That’s who we are and that’s
who we will always be.’”
Now, however, the guys behind
Smashed Waffles have come full circle
and are hoping to open up two more ca-
fes, one in Cary and one in Wilmington,
by the end of 2018.
igh
ale
n
ree vil
R
le
Fall 2018
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Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East 17

 Although the business has grown and
changed in many ways, Smashed Waffles
has stayed true to the business philosophy
that Harrison and Cox developed during
that first week of planning.
“I think that anytime you start some-
thing like this you get a lot of demands,”
Harrison said. “‘Hey, y’all should do
smoothies,’ or ‘you should do different
types of food,’ but really our philosophy
on it is we want to be really really good
at what we do.
“We feel like we’re really really good
at waffles, and we went all in on coffee,”
Harrison said. “We have really premium
18
coffee which we are able to trace the ori-
gin back to. Those are the two things that
we’re focusing on. Really good waffles and
really good coffee, and that’s who we are.
That’s our identity, and there’s no reason
to be anything else.”
In addition to the opening up of more
store fronts, another thing that has
changed about Smashed Waffles is the
environment that the very first cafe is
nestled into.
“We signed a lease pretty early on to get
on Dickinson, and a lot of people thought
we were crazy, but we really saw a lot of
opportunity,” Harrison said. “We went
Greenville: Life In The East
down there, we looked at the space sev-
eral times, and we looked at the area and
said ‘ok, we know where it is now,’ but we
saw where it potentially could be in the
next 12 to 24 months, and we were willing
to bet on that area.”
Smashed opened in 2016, making it one
of the first store fronts to open up in the
business renaissance currently going on
on Dickinson Avenue.
“There were obviously a couple of oth-
er businesses already down there, but
very few, and since that time it has real-
ly picked up,” Harrison said. “I would say
that we are in a very small group of other
Fall 2018
businesses that maybe ushered in a tran-
sition, and I’m hoping that it will continue
to transition into something really special.
I think it has just as much opportunity, if
not more, now than when we first looked
at it.”
When Harrison and Cox first visited
Dickinson Avenue they had a clear vi-
sion of the potential of both their busi-
ness and Dickinson Avenue as a whole,
and Smashed Waffles has certainly helped
both of those visions become a reality.
“We envisioned kind of a young profes-
sional, fun culture that was a little off the
beaten path to a certain degree, but just a
had really cool vibe that the city needs,”
Harrison said. “I’ve lived here my entire
life, I’ve never left, which is really crazy
to say, but I really wanted to help usher in Hunter Harrison
presses waffle
what I would like to see for the area. It’s dough onto an iron
really starting to become what people like as he prepares for
me and other people my age enjoy.” customers

Bethany Maciaszek, General

Manager at Smash Waffles in
Greenville, adds sprinkles to
the top of a Smash Waffle Ice
Cream Sandwich

Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East 19

 SWEET
success
One family’s fight to
create one of NC’s
largest wineries

By Mackenzie Tewksbury
Greenville: Life in the East

Photos by Molly Mathis

20 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018

 There’s an old, English saying: “An
apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
But some folks down in Rose Hill, North
Carolina — a farmin’ town — beg to
differ. They believe the true secret is
grapes.
Muscadine grapes.
In the form of wine, that is.
You see, in 1996, a “60 Minutes” special
reported that a glass of red wine is
actually healthy for you.
Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East
Jonathan Fussell, a junior at Universi-
ty of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 1996,
was walking down Franklin Street when
he spotted his father on the front page of
The News and Observer.
“N.C.’s favorite grape may be good for
the heart,” the headline read.
And just like that, Duplin Winery went
from selling 8,000 cases a year in 1995 to
about 18,000 in 1997, and about 300,000
in 2017.
It was truly what the Fussell family
calls their “turning point.”
21
 farmin’
TOWN
Rose Hill isn’t exactly a town you think
of when you hear the word “tourist.” But,
that’s exactly what it pulls in — over
200,000 visitors almost every year. A num-
ber that seems astronomical for the town
that only 1,628 people call home.
“Welcome to Rose Hill. Home of the
world’s largest frying pan,” a sign reads
as you enter the town.
From Greenville, you’ll take Highway
13 towards Wilmington for about 80 miles.
You’ll likely pass signs promising a “cool,
sweet, easy” experience in Rose Hill.
You’ll turn onto Main Street.
You’ll drive in from the town of Magno-
lia, and House of Raeford’s “Big Ed” will
It’s a town where people grow up work-
ing hard, just like Jonathan did. It’s where
people plant their roots. It’s a simple town
where people are proud of what they have;
where people say hi to strangers on the
street. It’s by no means a town that is a
typical North Carolina vacation spot. It
might be on the radar of those passing
through it to get to their vacations, but
even that seems to be a stretch. If you
want to see the World’s Largest Frying
Pan, you’ll drive about 2 miles past Big
Ed. The small-town community cooks
fried chicken on it twice a year — they’re
darn proud of it.
But before you even get to that, you’ll
pass what many would call the biggest
tourist attraction of their town.
Duplin Winery. A building you’ll likely
miss even if you’re driving the speed limit.
It’s not flashy. It’s modest — just like
those who built it from the ground up.
But it was built by demand. A demand
for something better, something cooler,
something…
Sweeter.
eH
os ill

R
greet you as you drive. It looks like a sky-
scraper, but it’s a feed mill.
That’s when you know you’ve made it
to one of the top agriculture hot spots of
the state.
“This is a farmin’ town,” Jonathan
says as he drives down roads he knows
by heart.

22 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018

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Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East 23

 THE
early
years
Duplin Winery is, and always has been,
rooted in family.
The Fussell family, almost all East Car-
olina University alumni, have owned and
operated the winery from the very first
inception of it in 1972. That’s 46 years,
three generations, and gallons and gallons
of wine. Some ups and some downs. A lot
of grapes, a lot of gritty, dirty, to the bone
hard work. But a whole lot of love.
Brothers David and Daniel Fussell,
with a mission to better themselves and
their family, created Duplin Wine Cel-
lars, Inc. out of a necessity. The brothers
planted 10 acres of muscadine grapes in
an agreement with Canandaigua Wines,
a large winery in upstate New York.
The winery promised the Fussell’s $350
per ton of muscadine grapes — grapes
thought to make the best sweet wines in
the world.
But, during that first year, the grape in-
dustry took a monstrous hit, causing the
cost of grapes to plummet from $350 per
ton to $150.
The Fussell’s would’ve lost money just
trying to sell to Canandaigua Wines.
In other words, the Fussell’s had a
whole bunch of grapes and not a lot to do
with them.
outs of wine making. They researched,
long and hard.
They borrowed money from their fa-
ther, “Big D.”
They worked day in and day out. Trying
to avoid Sundays, of course.
They bottled their first bottle of wine,
the Carlos bottle, in 1975.
“It probably wasn’t any good,” the fam-
ily jokes, but to this day they can still be
found behind a glass casing in what was
the first ever warehouse, now a part of
their retail store.
And with little — if any — knowledge
about making wine, they embarked on the
journey that turned into one of the largest
wineries in the South.
It was unexpected. It still is.
“A blessing,” as Jonathan says repeat-
edly about the success.
But it wasn’t easy.
THE
good,
THE
bad,
THE
cause they couldn’t afford wine bottles.
They corked the bottles by hand. They

But they desperately needed something
— anything — to salvage their livelihoods.
So, they had a decision to make. It was
jelly or wine.
“We were good ole southern Baptist
boys, we don’t drink wine,” Jonathan,
co-owner and son of David Fussell said.
“But we converted.”
David and Daniel were committed.
They dove head first into the business,
with no plans of looking back.
They interviewed leading wine makers
from pre-Prohibition about the ins-and-
ugly
There were good years, bad years and
down-right ugly years.
Years that held promise; years that re-
quired hope and perseverance; years that
almost forced the family into bankruptcy.
But one thing is for sure: the Fussell’s
never gave up on the dream.
They bottled wine in mason jars they
bought from Rose Hill Trading Co. be-
licked the labels to stick them on the bottle.
They stomped the grapes themselves. It’s
as homegrown as it gets.
Not long after that first year, the state
of North Carolina Department of Com-
merce wanted to promote wine makers
from North Carolina, and declared that
wine made from N.C. grapes would get a
tax break. The Fussell’s were able to keep
bottling wines and selling them for a bit
cheaper than other wineries. The business
grew exponentially — from 20 cases in
1977 to nearly 44,000 cases in 1983.

24 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018

 Call it fate, serendipity, or just plain
luck.
Whichever you chose, something was
working.
The family borrowed money to open a
brand new wine facility about half a mile
down the road, where they were able to
make and bottle thousands and thousands
of cases of wine.
But, as it normally does, their luck
ran out. In 1983, a group of lawyers came
down from New York City and ruled the
tax break unconstitutional. The price
of Duplin wines hiked, and they just
couldn’t compete with big-box wineries.
Fall 2018
For this small, family-run business, it was
detrimental.
They lost their house trying to keep the
business running. They sold all of their
good equipment.
It was a fight. But that’s what this fam-
ily was used to. So they kept on fighting.
Days looked a bit brighter when 60 Min-
utes aired a special that said red wine is
actually healthy for you. People took no-
tice, and they flocked to Duplin County for
some sweet, chilled wine.
Campbell University — “good ole’
southern Baptist boys just like us,” Jona-
than said — used some of Duplin’s grapes
Greenville: Life In The East
for a study of their own, in which they
found out that red muscadine grapes have
seven times more disease fighting antiox-
idants than European ones.
In August 1996, Duplin Wines landed
on the front page of the Raleigh News and
Observer.
Bingo for the Fussell family and Du-
plin Wines.
“The busisness just skyrocketed,” Jon-
athan said.
The company has boasted double digit
growth since that study.
25
GOOD OLE
southern
HOSPITALITY
Jonathan Fussell talks long and slow,
cracking a joke whenever he can.
“Welcome to Duplin Wines!” he says
loud and proud to every customer that
walks through the front doors.
He’s dressed in a purple Duplin Win-
ery shirt. He’s got a bald head; he never
leaves the house without his hat and his
sunglasses. He hops into his white truck
and a book on tape automatically starts
playing from his stereo. Sand still lingers
in the backseat of his truck from his re-
cent family trip to Carolina Beach, one of
their favorite things to do.
He’s on his way to Duplin’s second fa-
cility: a massive production center where
they press the grapes and make the wine
— the one they built in the “good years.”
It’s home to one of the largest grape press-
ers in the country.
It’s where Jonathan spent much of his
childhood. He’s co-owner of Duplin Win-
ery, along with his older brother, David
Fussell Jr.
Jonathan manages the restaurant and
visitor center, while David supervises the
wine-making.
David went to East Carolina University,
like the rest of the Fussell family; Jona-
than chose UNC.
David worked at the winery; Jonathan
left with plans to be a lawyer.
He never dreamed of coming back to
26
work for the winery. It just wasn’t mak-
ing any money back then, he said. The
company had 3 employees when he left
for college: his brother, his dad and one
other woman. They couldn’t afford to pay
him. They could barely afford to pay the
employees they had — his dad didn’t even
take a salary at the winery.
He was going to attend law school. In-
stead, he returned back to Rose Hill for
good in 1998. He was the Duplin Winery’s
sixth employee.
“I was cheap help,” he said. “It was the
worst thing that happened, but the best
thing that happened.”
He doesn’t know what it’s like to be a
banker, an accountant, a doctor or a law-
yer. But he doesn’t care. Rose Hill is home.
“I don’t know anything different — this
is my home,” he said. “I tried to study and
figure out what other people are doing,
but this is what I’ve done my whole life.”
He might’ve been making wine his en-
tire life, but the 38 year old doesn’t even
call himself a winemaker.
“All I’m here for is to help folks have
fun.”
MODERN
days
Jonathan and David bought the winery
from their dad in 2009.
They didn’t make their last payment un-
til this past May. It makes them officially
the second pair of brothers to own Duplin
Winery.
Greenville: Life In The East
What was once a six-employee com-
pany now employs about 168 people, all
of whom Jonathan greets on a first name
basis as he passes them. Nearly 30 of them
are Jonathan’s next of kin in some way.
The winery does well — now. But Jon-
athan said he took that for granted.
“I got cocky, in a way. No matter what
we did, the Lord just blessed and us and
we were growing.”
But in 2011, grocery stores were suffer-
ing due to the recession. Food Lion, one of
their major distributors, had to raise the
price of Duplin wines. The company took
yet another blow.
They started August of 2011 up 18 per-
cent, ended the year up only 6 percent.
They started 2012 down 38 percent.
“We were like, ‘We’re getting our butts
kicked here.’”
Times were changing, Jonathan said,
and they had to change with them. But
how?
They started doing trade shows, events,
upping their marketing, and they ended
the year only down 2 percent.
And then, they made an even bigger
jump. They decided to go where the peo-
ple are.
They opened a second location in Myr-
tle Beach, about 130 miles from Rose Hill.
It was tough, brutal work, and one of only
two times Jonathan has ever cried while
going to work.
“But, I did have off on Sundays.”
Fall 2018
 THE
process
September 1 marks the start of grape
season — the busiest three weeks of the
year. They work from dusk to dawn every
single day. If that sounds like a lot, that’s
likely because it is. But it’s a piece of cake
compared to what he’s used to.
“When I was a kid, we pressed grapes
all day and night for seven weeks,” Jona-
than said. “We processed 400 tons a sea-
son. But now we press around 16 thousand
tons a season.”
And before most of us even think about
drinking our morning coffee, folks at the
winery have likely been awake for hours,
pressing grapes and getting them ready
Fall 2018
for the long process ahead.
Jonathan walks visitors through the fa-
cility, passing massive steel presses hold-
ing up to 5,000 gallons of wine. They look
staggeringly huge, but Jonathan says they
are the smallest ones.
Around the corner stand about one
hundred and thirty tanks, home to nearly
30,000 gallons of wine each, all in differ-
ent stages. Conveyor belts move quickly
behind them,
Another mile down the road you’ll find
the vineyards. There are grapes as far
as the eye can see — about 140 acres of
grapes just in the experimental vineyard.
It takes four years for the grapes to
completely mature. These grapes are in
the second year.
Greenville: Life In The East
They’ve got a long way to go before they
make it into the bottles and in the hands
of die-hard Duplin supporters, but it’s not
hard to know when they’re ready. Not for
Jonathan, at least.
“As soon as I get off the interstate, I’ll
know,” he said.
Making as much wine as the Fussell’s
do would be overwhelming to the average
person.
But the Fussell’s don’t see it that way.
To them, it’s just another day.
Another day of making what they call
some of the best sweet wine in the world.
27
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Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East 29

 SMELLS

money
LIKE
Cash Crop has farmers seeing purple

By Kim Grizzard
Greenville: Life in the East

Photos by Juliette Cooke

30 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018

 Some sage advice:
Stopping to smell
the flowers isn't
always such
a good idea,
and stopping to
pick them can be
even worse.

Those lavender and white blooms

carpeting lush fields in late spring
and early summer are tempting. But
clary sage is a crop that is best ap-
preciated at a distance.
“You do see a lot of folks stop
that are passing through, especial-
ly heading to the beach, that aren't
local folks. They stop, pick flowers.
They're so pretty,” Bertie County
Agriculture Agent Jarette Hurry
said, laughing. “But they get out and
throw them away before they get too
far down the road.”
That smell has been likened to
everything from sweaty socks to a
wet dog and even a litter box. But to
farmers in eastern North Carolina, it
is the sweet smell of success.
Northeastern North Carolina is
the mecca of clary sage-production.
As much as 97 percent of the clary
sage in the world is grown in nine
counties in the region, including Pitt.
Danny Perry's family has been
farming in Bertie County for four
generations. Until seven years ago,
Perry and his sons mostly grew to-
bacco on the sandy soil of their farm
near Colerain. Today, those once-
green fields have turned purple.

Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East 31

32 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018
 “A lot of guys that have grown tobacco
in the past grown sage now,” Hurry said.
“It's really been the biggest money-mak-
ing crop around in northeastern North
Carolina outside of tobacco, the largest
income generator. “
So how did sage blossom in what has
traditionally been tobacco country? The
truth is tobacco helped to plant the seeds.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco company began
planting clary sage in Bertie County as
early as the 1960s.
David M. Peele, president of Avoca, a
Merry Hill company that processes the
sage, said clary sage was originally in-
tended to be a substitute for Turkish to-
bacco, one of three types of tobacco used
in an American-blend cigarette.
When the price of Turkish tobacco
skyrocketed in the 1950s, R.J. Reynolds
sought a cheaper alternative. Chemists
working to find a suitable substitute ze-
roed in on clary sage.
“That was the whole premise of why
they started this business,” Peele said of
the company, which now has more than
100 full-time employees, in addition to
seasonal workers.
In the early 1960s, R.J. Reynolds only
grew and processed about 20 or 30 acres
of clary sage at the facility, which was
considered to be top secret.
“(It was) somewhat of a bluff,” Peele
explained. “(Reynolds executives) said,
'We're prepared today never to buy an-
other pound or kilo of Turkish tobacco
because we have this substitute.' They
built this plant over here but they weren't
running it anywhere near the capacity it
would take to feed the tobacco world.
Fall 2018
“But it was enough that the price came
down,” he said. “... Then they moth-balled
the whole thing.”
In the late 1970s, as other profitable
uses for clary sage began to emerge, both
the crop and the company made a come-
back. The sage, it turned out, produces a
Danny Perry's waxy substance known as sclareol, which
proved useful in helping give scents stay-
family has been ing power.
As a fixative for fragrance, sclareol
farming in Bertie proved to be a cheaper and more abun-
dant alternative to ambergris,
County for four a substance that is produced in the di-
generations. gestive system of sperm whales.
In 1978, Avoca began processing a few
Until seven years thousand acres' worth of clary sage to cre-
ate sclareolide. A few years later, a move
ago, Perry and from phosphate to enzyme-based laundry
his sons mostly detergents proved to be a game-changer
for Avoca.
grew tobacco on “They (enzyme-based detergents) will
clean your clothes, but they smell like
the sandy soil of dirty socks,” Peele said, laughing. “All
of us buy detergents based on what the
their farm near clothes smell like. Fragrance companies
Colerain. Today, have figured that out.”
Remember the laundry detergent com-
those once- mercial that shows a man on the beach,
pining away for the woman who left him?
green fields have Holding her scarf to his face, he breathes
turned purple. in and says, “What? She washed this like
a month ago! How's a guy supposed to
move on.”
That advertisement, promoting “the
long-lasting scent of Gain,” is Peele's fa-
vorite commercial.
“That is the greatest commercial in the
world because that is really our product,”
he said. “We don't get any credit for it, but
erry Hi
M
ll
Greenville: Life In The East 33
that's our product.”
The use of sclareolide in laundry de-
tergent has produced a tenfold increase in
the demand for the chemical preservative,
bumping northeastern North Carolina's
acreage of clary sage from about 2,500
to 25,000 per year. It also expanded the
growing area from Bertie, still the larg-
est producer of clary sage, to surrounding
counties.
One reason to spread the wealth is the
potential threat of hurricanes. Clary sage,
which is planted in August, can be taken
out by fall storms.
“Anytime after Sept. 25, we can't re-
plant clary sage. It's too late.” Peele said.
“That's one big problem we have , so we
protect ourselves.”
Ironically, it was a hurricane that
moved the Perrys to begin growing clary
sage. Hurricane Irene in 2011 devastated
the family's tobacco crop, leaving only a
handful of rows standing in 35 acres.
The Perrys had crop insurance, but the
settlement was not enough to make ends
meet.
34
“What they paid me was a joke,” Danny
Perry said.
Although he had worked in tobacco
since he was 6 years old, Perry decided it
was time to give it up.
“I'm still trying to get out of debt from
it but this has helped.,” he said of clary
sage. “This has carried us. It's basically
saved us.”
Hurry said the sage grows well in the
sandy soil of Bertie County, which in the
last eight to 10 years has seen an increase
in the number of farmers contracting with
Avoca to grow sage.
Peele said the relationship between the
company and its growers is built on trust.
The company has its own seed producer
and provides seeds to the farmers.
“There are other areas of the world that
try to grow clary sage, but we're unique
in that we have the total supply chain,”
he said.
“We have to trust you to grow the crop
and you have to trust us to buy the crop
because there is no other place on the face
of this earth that they can sell that prod-
Greenville: Life In The East
uct. It has to come here.”
Perry's sons have both held jobs at
Avoca, which hires dozens of college stu-
dents each summer during peak season.
On the farm, clary sage is a year-round
crop, planted in August and harvested the
following June.
“It's a very tedious crop,” Perry's son,
Brandon, 25, said. “You're always busy do-
ing something.”
The Perrys have grown up to 300 acres
in a year. This year's crop is 180 acres of
beautiful, bitter-smelling sage.
“If you get a little rain shower and ride
by, you can really smell it,” Brandon said.
Standing beside a sage field ready for
harvest, he joked that a sage farmer who
stopped in a local cafe for lunch “stunk up
the whole restaurant.”
It may not smell like roses, but sage
farmers are laughing all the way to the
bank.
“We should have started growing it a lot
sooner,” Brandon said. “I think it smells
good. Smells like money.”
Fall 2018
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 READY
for
Takeoff
First Flight Vodka
soars to new heights

By Ginger Livingston
Greenville: Life in the East

Photos by Juliette Cooke

40 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018

 WINTERVILLE — The owners of a lo-
cal vodka distillery say a pending move to
Farmville will take their product to new
heights.
Wes Shepherd, owner of Kitty Hawk
Stills, produced his first batch of vodka
about two years ago in a warehouse space
turned distillery off Forlines Road.
Today First Flight Vodka is sold by 70
ABC Boards across North Carolina. He’s
now tapping into the experience he gained
as a restaurant franchise owner so First
Flight can soar.
Fall 2018
While in college he joined a partner and
opened the second Jersey Mike’s Subs in
North Carolina, the 26th location in the
nation. Today, Shepherd owns 10 locations
in eastern North Carolina and there are
1,500 restaurants open or in development
nationwide.
“All of that journey brought me here,”
Shepherd said.
He formed Kitty Hawk Stills in 2012
with the intention of making small batch
vodka. He was reading articles and seeing
television accounts of small distilleries
Greenville: Life In The East
opening and he was intrigued.
“I thought that’s a pretty cool thing and
there weren’t a whole lot of people doing
it in North Carolina, or anywhere, at that
time in 2012,” Shepherd said. It took him
back to his college years, when he brewed
his own beer.
“It was microbrew quality, good stuff,
but it was in small batches, mostly ales,”
he said. Shepherd, now 47, contemplated
opening a microbrewery but at the age of
23 he didn’t think he could get the financ-
ing needed to purchase the necessary
41
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seller. Dir: Greenville Blvd. to Memorial
Dr. Rt on Thomas Langston Rd., Lf on
Shallow, Rt on Eaton. Hostess: Falene
258-0788. MLS# 77766
FEATURE
Energy Efficient $435,000
4BR/3.5BAs in additon to office &
gym. Master bath w/steam shower.
Kitchen has cherry cabinets. Approx
.58 acre lot. Call Kunny 531-1872.
MLS# 76425
702-2145

Elite
Employment opportunities available uponProperties
successful completion of the class.
Ranch $
129,900 Townhouse Learn 60,000
a new skill, Join a112,500
Extra Parking
$
winning team!
Brick Home $ $
229,900 First Time Buyer $79,900
JUST LIKE NEW! 3BR/2BA 2BR/1.5BA townhouse features COZY 3BR/2BA on large curved lot 3BR/2.5BA Large family room 3BR/2BA features separate kitchen,
features greatroom, kitchen combo. ceramic tile countertops, gas logs, w/extra parking pad, storage building lg master downstairs, living room.
skylight in bathroom & private patio. open to kitchen. Master w/WIC &
Vinyl siding & nice landscaped & 2 patio areas. All this for a great
master BA w/separate shower. Call 4th room w/ washer/dryer hook-up &
yard. Call Eddie 916-6403. Close to medical district. Call Pam price! Call Ida Lynn 714-5099. could be used as office. Call Falene
413-8697. MLS# 80290 Jennifer 327-2297. MLS# 74277
MLS# 77754 MLS#80365 258-0788. MLS# 80407
FEATURE FEATURE FEATURE FEATURE FEATURE

Mobile Home
4BR/2BA. Pool & hot tub. Garage
w/3 bays & upstairs is unfinished,
can be an apt. 12x16 detached
storage w/elec & phone. 10x16 shed.
Call Pat 531-8188. MLS# 76759
FEATURE
Like New $
124,900
$
139,900 Custom Design $
428,000 Beautifully Landscaped $365,000 Bethel $
70,000 Country Charm $127,900
4BR/3.5BA. Gourmet kitchen. APPROX. .82 ACRE CORNER LOT NICE 3BR/1BA home in good condition. 3BR/2BA w/built-in bookcases.
Marble entry foyer & raised 4BR’s w/WIC’s, each BR adjoins a Approx. 1800 sqft. Landscaped yard, Nicely landscaped approx. 1 acre
bath. Huge bonus room. Downstairs attached double carport, outside storage lot w/centipede. Pool, playhouse for
patio w/gazebo. Call Ida Lynn MBR w/whirlpool, huge double vanity. and concrete drive. Call Pam 413-8697.
714-5099. MLS# 75438 Call Elaine 902-6771. MLS #80289 children. Call Ken Rakestraw
MLS# 80187 902-8923. MLS# 75573
FEATURE FEATURE FEATURE FEATURE
equipment. Also, most people hadn’t de-
veloped a taste for microbrews.
“Everybody would taste it and say this
No City Taxes $
129,900 Traditional Home $178,900 Winterville $
144,499 Cul-de-sac 379,000 that good. (They’d say) where is the
isn’t
$

NO CITY TAXES! 3BR/2BA split floor 4BR/2.5BA Approx. .54 acre lot.
3BR/2BA on large lot. Cathedral
ceilings, formal dining, gas logs,
3BR/2BA. Ranch with a fenced in
backyard , single car garage, new
3BR/2.5BA formal living w/fireplace. Lg
breakfast nook, formal dining. Hardwood plan. Formal dining room w/Pergo Features hardwood floors, Natural
gas logs, Lite Beer or the Bud Lite Beer at?
granite countertops, laundry room and
paint, walk in closet, fireplace, in foyer, hall, dining & kitchen. Fenced flooring. Gas log fp in greatroom. 2
laundry room. A must see! Call walk-in attic. Screened back porch and
double attached garage. Twenty-five years ago this was unusual,”
spacious kitchen. Call Kunny backyard & sprinkler system. Call storage buildings and lg fenced backyard.
Pam 413-8697. MLS# 80674 Audrey 414-0067. MLS# 77647 Call Elaine 902-6771. MLS# 76707 Call Kunny
531-1872. MLS# 77686 531-1872. MLS#74154
INVESTMENT INVESTMENT INVESTMENT INVESTMENT INVESTMENT Shepherd said.
AL
R1 CI “Fast forward 15 years later, people are
O ER
2F M
M
CO
accepting that flavor of traditional, micro-
Acreage 750,000
brew beer and fast forward 25 years to
Investor’s Delight $69,000 Investment $
60,000 Investment $
40,000 Investment $
60,000 $

land at intersection of now

3 BEDROOM, 2 BATH
w/greatroom, kitchen combo.
Nicely landscaped, rented. Call
Eddie 916-6403. MLS# 80428
FEATURE
Snow Hill
3BR/1.5BA situated on approx. 1
acre lot. Greatroom, dining area,
kitchen & 2 car garage. Call
Kunny 531-1872. MLS# 77442
42
Hwy 264and it’s normal. People are asking
2 HOUSES ON SAME 2 BEDROOM, 1 BATH home 3 BEDROOM, 2 BATH home APPROX. 11.26 ACRES of cleared
&
PARCEL, each 2 bedroom, 1 bath features greatroom/den, kitchen with nice greatroom. Rented. Mozingo Rd. Also has road frontage on
with cash flow. Both rented. Call & dining. Vinyl siding. Call Great cash flow. Call Eddie Stantonsburg Rd. General for that
industrial,
light commercial use. Call Keith
instead of the Bud Light,” he said.
Eddie 916-6403. MLS# 80427 Eddie 916-6403. MLS# 80425 916-6403. MLS# 80426 215-0015. #74708
Shepherd said he wasn’t going to let a
FEATURE TOP PRODUCER FEATURE FEATURE
second opportunity pass him by.
Pam
He went with vodka production be-
Cherry
cause it was the most consumed spirit at
Broker,
$
90,650 Custom Home $
197,500 Realtor, CRS Palm Harbor Home $89,900 Better Than New the $
time.
184,500
RECENTLY REMODELED 3BR/3BA. Greatroom w/fp, kitchen 3BR/2.5BA w/hardwood floors
3BR/2.5BA. New replacement windows,
baths, paint, carpet, vinyl & tile. Corner 413-8697 w/work island & breakfast area. Lg
backyard w/fence. Room for garden greatroom. MB w/Jacuzzi tub & “There
downstairs. Formal living, dining &
are more ways to use it than a
lot w/2 driveways plus a room with
outdoor kicthen adjoining patio. Call Ida & shed included. Call Carol separate shower. Call Jennifer
Lynn 714-5099. MLS# 77769 531-7799. MLS# 76965 327-3297. MLS# 76009
Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018

Ida Lynn Stox Keith Vandiford Linny Worlledge Frankie Atkinson Kunny Brothers Kevin Staton Ken Edwards Pat Terry Eddie Williams Audrey Accomando Joe Lyles Jennifer Tanner
714-5099 714-7126 215-0015 717-7799 531-1872 258-5304 531-4247 531-8188 916-6403 414-0067 268-2334 327-3297
brown liquor. It can be used in all types of
drinks. Just add fruit to it or you favorite
mixer,” Shepherd said.
He took the process slowly, paying for
the equipment out of his own pocket as
his went through the state permitting pro-
cess. He did hire a consultant to help him
with the federal permits.
The real challenge came in finding the
right location for the distillery, he said.
He wound up renting space in a storage
facility located on Winterville. Shepherd
said the owner had had a soft spot for an
entrepreneur facing monumental state
and federal regulations.
The town of Winterville had to consul-
tant with the North Carolina Department
of Insurance and its fire marshal’s office to
Fall 2018
determine what building and safety codes
had to be enforced.
He had to get an engineer to design a
blending room, where the distilled alco-
hol is mixed with water, producing the fi-
nal product, and to ensure the space had
proper fire proofing.
Creating the actual vodka was easy,
Shepherd said.
“When you are making a spirit
you start pretty much with
a beer, the same con-
cept where you
Greenville: Life In The East
are taking a grain, adding yeast and wa-
ter to it, and fermenting it out,” Shepherd
said. “Take the fermented liquid, put it in
a steel container which is heated to 180,
185 degrees and the spirit comes out as a
vapor which is condense using a cooling
tube with water surrounding it to con-
dense down to the spirit.”
The test was creating a brand.
intervi
W
lle
43
 Wes Shepherd, owner of
Kitty Hawk Stills
“Instead of making it Wes’s vodka I
wanted to make it something unique,” he
said.
Shepherd started thinking about his
other life’s passion - aviation - and North
Carolina’s place in history as the loca-
tion of powered, sustained and controlled
flight. Playing off North Carolina’s slogan
as “First in Flight,” First Flight Vodka was
born.
“There are lots of things people can
claim to be first at but I can tell you no
one in the world can claim first flight other
than North Carolina,” said Shepherd, who
held a pilot’s license until 10 years ago
when a medical condition grounded him.
As he thought about different aspects
of aviation and how it could be incorpo-
rated into his brand, the image of the red
flight safety tag that are attached to cov-
ers and pins that protect aircraft parts but
have to be removed before takeoff kept
coming up. The tags say “remove before
flight” and he liked the concept of remov-
44
ing one to open a bottle. He also decided
to use a red bottle because all other vodka
was sold in clear or blue bottles.
‘I just liked the color. I think it stands
out on the shelf,” he said. “When some-
body can’t remember the name they can
say, do you have that red-bottle vodka?”
Shepherd delivered his first product,
three pallets of vodka, each containing
192 cases with 12 bottles per case, to the
N.C. Alcohol Beverage Control Commis-
sion’s distribution warehouse in Decem-
ber 2016.
Pitt County Alcohol Beverage Control
Board was the first to sell First Flight,
followed by Carteret County and then
Dare County, where the Wright Brothers
launched their historic flight.
Dare County started selling the vodka
in April 2017 and today is the largest seller
of First Flight vodka.
“These are businesses in North Caro-
lina and we want to help them the most
we can,” said Ted Toler, general manager
Greenville: Life In The East
of Dare County ABC Board.
Within the last 30 days, which includ-
ed the Fourth of July holiday, busiest
week of the year at Dare County’s ABC
stores, First Flight sold 25 bottles, about
the same amount as other North Carolina
produced vodka’s, Toler said. Sales data
suggests its popular among vacationers.
“They want to see what’s made locally.
We only have one truly local that’s made
product on the Outer Banks,” Toler said.
“We want to promote any distillery in
North Carolina. We can’t sell all of them
but we do have a decent selection of North
Carolina products and try to promote
them as much as we can within the law.”
Out of about 1,100 items, Toler said his
stores have 27 separately listed spirits
produced in North Carolina.
About a year ago, Farmville business-
man Bert Smith received a bottle of First
Flight vodka.
“I thought it was really unique and I
was interested in where it came from so
Fall 2018
Fall 2018 Greenville: Life In The East 45
 I took the opportunity to come over and
see his operation,” Smith said.
Smith is a member of The Farmville
Group, a collection of businessmen lead-
ing revitalization efforts in that com-
munity. After meeting Wes, sampling
his product and seeing his production
space, Smith said he knew he was on to
something.
“I said man, this is a really cool prod-
uct and a really cool concept but you need
a better storefront than what you have,”
Smith said. He had the perfect space for
Shepherd, a 116-year-old former horse sta-
ble located across from Plank Road Steak
House.
“There is a lot of interest in small batch
distillers that are hand-crafted, hand-bot-
tled and use local products. We plan to
sort of piggyback on that concept,” Smith
said.
They are currently working with Farm-
ville officials to secure proper permitting
and to renovate the space for distillery op-
erations. Once he’s in the space Shepherd
will have to apply for a new state distill-
er’s permit and amend his existing federal
permit.
The changes will also him to offer
tours and tastings.
“That will definitely be happening
there more so than here,” Shepherd said. “I
think we are going to see a lot more spon-
taneous people stopping in. We’ll probably
have one or two days a week where we’ll
keep visitation hours, hours open to the
public.”
Shepherd, who earlier this year de-
livered his sixth pallet of product to the
CHILDHOOD DREAM?
state, is temporarily halting commercial
[ Make it a reality at Pitt Community College ]
production until the move is complete.
Although he isn’t producing product
to sell, Shepherd is still hard at work. He
is finalizing a recipe for “Duneshine” a
moonshine he hopes to launch with the
next two years. He also hopes to start ex-
perimenting with rum.
Both men are excited for First Flight’s
w w w. p i t t c c . e d u next chapter.
“We will work together and take first
flight to new heights,” Smith said.

46 Greenville: Life In The East Fall 2018

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